Hack Your Interviews: Six Ways Communication Unlocks Success
6 pitfalls that can flop your interview and how to avoid them
I recently mentored two individuals navigating job interviews in the US tech industry. This made me recall the hundreds of interviews I have been part of, both from my personal experience being interviewed and throughout nine years as a people leader at Google interviewing others. I want to share what I have learned with you!
While engineering and managerial interviews inspired the write-up below, the content applies to any interview in any professional field.
Here’s your summary before we even start:
Share your thought process, be humble and take an incremental approach to problem solving.
The key to interview success? Communication.
It’s not just about the correct answers but showing you can collaborate, understand feedback, explain your thoughts, and navigate uncertainty.
You are missing the point if you only focus on spitting the correct answers.
Sure, the job interview is designed to examine and assess your knowledge. But more than that, it’s designed to test if you can succeed at the job. Which breaks down to:
- Can people work with you? Will they want to?
- Will they understand you?
- What happens when you don’t know or understand something?
Do you take the time to align on the problem? => see mistake 1 & 3 - Can you deliver value even in ambiguity?
Do you clarify assumptions? => see mistake 2 - Can you deliver simple elegant solutions or complicated solution?
=> see mistake 3 - What is your thought process?
Can you explain your thinking? => see mistake 4 - Are you truly open to feedback? => see mistake 5
- Can you give feedback?
Will you push back when needed? => see mistake 6
In many big companies, interviewers use structured rubrics to assess design, communication, and testing skills.
Since this is what the company seeks to understand during those few interview hours, you should showcase communication, assumption clarification, simplicity, thought process narration, error checking, and open-mindedness to feedback throughout your interviews.
Here is the breakdown of six common mistakes and how to use them as anti-patterns to drive success.
Mistake 1: Solving the wrong problem
Tip 1: Repeat the problem as you understand it to ensure alignment.
This is not a blind test. You are human, and another human is in the room or on the call. Start by reflecting once you are tasked with solving a problem or question. Repeat what you understood the task to be. This is the first step to verify you will spend time on the right things.
Just imagine you misunderstood the question or problem and didn’t repeat it to the interviewer. Now, you are spending precious energy and time trying to solve it.
The result? You spent a meaningful chunk of the interview on the wrong thing, and the interviewer is left without any choice but to recommend “no hire.”
Mistake 2: Unstated Assumptions
Tip 2: Clarify your assumptions upfront. If unsure about a detail, ask.
The pressure to perform makes most interviewees make assumptions on their way to solving the problem, but they forget to share those assumptions with the interviewers.
For example, you are asked to get a number as input from the user. You assume that number is an Integer. The interviewer meant you should be getting a float/real number.
You spend your time designing a solution that works for integers. When you are done (20 minutes later), the interviewer will ask:
“can you update assuming the input can be float?”
You just wasted 20 minutes. You are now stressed out and low on time.
Practice stating your assumptions as simply as asking
“The input, can I assume it is limited to integers?”
Mistake 3: Overcomplicating solutions
Tip 3: Start with a basic solution and iteratively refine. Simplicity often leads to clarity.
“I just interviewed a guy, the literal fastest coder that I’ve ever seen. I was honestly watching in awe as code flew by on the screen.
He failed because:
- didn’t ask a single requirements question until 35 min in (60 min interview)
- twice had to be redirect and guided back to a simple solution
- immediately went for the complicated end solution”
— My friend texted me this saying he just failed someone for this mistake.
Too many interviewees are so keen to impress the interviewers that they try to design and solve a complicated version of the problem.
Taking a page from Scrum, Agile and the concept of MVP, it’s better to deliver something small or a partial solution than delivering nothing or the wrong thing.
Take an incremental approach, start with a naive approach, a brute-force solution, and work to make it more sophisticated.
Don’t be afraid. Good interviewers will guide you with questions as you go.
I usually start by saying,
“I’m going to begin with a simple approach and evolve it. Is that okay?”
They typically say “sure”.
I do my thing, and then they say something like
“ok, now can you solve for negative input?”
I already delivered something that shows I have a brain in my skull. Now, I can improve on that.
Mistake 4: Keeping silent
Tip 4: Narrate your thought process, reveal your problem-solving approach and engage the interviewer.
What’s the best way to help people understand how you think? It’s simple: verbalizing your thought process.
I like to narrate myself in interviews: “I’m exploring X, considering Y.” This approach invites guidance and demonstrates your analytical journey, which is as valuable as the solution itself. It reveals your problem-solving style beyond just the final code.
Mistake 5: Pretending to be perfect, skipping the test phase
Tip 5: Proactively test your solution. Show you can anticipate and address potential errors.
Surprisingly, few candidates test their code during interviews.
When the interviewee asks:
“how do you feel about the code? Does it work well for all inputs?”
Pause and say:
“hmm.. I don’t think so, but let me test it.”
Heck, proactively test before they ask with various inputs to uncover potential issues. This not only demonstrates diligence but also your commitment to quality.
If time is short, communicate with your interviewer:
“May I take a moment to test this?”
This initiative shows your thoroughness and ability to anticipate and address problems proactively. Communication is key.
Mistake 6: Overvaluing Suggestive Questions
Tip 6: Treat all questions as open-ended (both “yes” and “no” are options). Demonstrate your reasoning skills.
Sometimes, the interviewer will ask
“ok, this is OLog(n), can you do better, can you design a linear complexity solution?”
when there is no way to design a linear solution. Yes, it was a real question to test your thinking skills and perhaps self-confidence.
Similarly, they might ask if you can do better on O(n2). Jumping to “no” without giving it some thought and ideally speaking through your thought process (remember? communication) will be a mistake.
So there you have it. All in all, here is some straightforward advice: share your thought process, be humble, and take an incremental approach to problem solving.
Do you have a winning tip for interviews? Do share through the comments. I’d love to add it for everyone to benefit from.
I had my fair share of interviews on both sides, and I am happy to practice or offer help.
May the job lords be kind to us all.
